Health leaders urge Mansfield and Ashfield to boost health by walking

NEWS: News.

News Reporter

Health leaders are urging people to celebrate National Walking Month during May by putting their best foot forward.

GPs stressed this week that brisk walking was great for the heart and that physical activity was crucial to a healthy lifestyle.

Dr Richard Bull, Deputy chairman of NHS North Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said: “Walking can bring real health benefits but it isn’t simply a case of putting one foot in front of the other.

“Those who can walk should do it briskly so they feel out of breath. It is one of the simplest, cheapest and most rewarding forms of exercise, and it can have such huge benefits for the heart.

“It can also reduce blood pressure, tone muscles, strengthen your bones and help control your weight. You could also really reduce your risk of developing heart disease, the UK’s biggest killer, which accounts for around 82,000 deaths each year.”

His words were echoed by Dr Steve Lloyd, chairman of NHS Hardwick CCG, who said: “Older people who are vulnerable to a fall in the home often fall because they aren’t active for most of the time. Equally, working age people spend a lot of time sitting down in the office. In all honesty, most of us are guilty of being more sedentary than we should.

“Two and a half hours of moderate intensity activity a week, such as a brisk walk, will not only have health benefits, it will also reduce stress and increase your general wellbeing.”

People can find a walk near them by entering their postcode on the Walk4Life web site at www.walk4life.info/find-a-walk.

People who are new to walking or have a long-term health condition can visit www.walkingforhealth.org.uk for details of a series of walks led by a trained guide and first aider. GPs and other healthcare professionals can refer suitable patients to the Walking for Health scheme.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Hucknall Dispatch provides news, events and sport features from the Hucknall area. For the best up to date information relating to Hucknall and the surrounding areas visit us at Hucknall Dispatch regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Hucknall Dispatch requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.